Pretty Colors

I tried two, count 'em, two new recipes today, and they both turned out pretty well! These are both from the Weight Watchers in 20 Minutes cookbook. But, don't let the title fool you... even though it may be 20 minutes of cooking time, each of these took about an hour to make including all the prep. (Note, I'm not going to share the recipes here, but you can see the basic idea and probably find them online elsewhere.)

First up, a dish called "New Orleans-Style Chicken." This involved okra, corn, tomatoes, and cajun/creole seasoning. A nice combo that ultimately ended up with a little sweet taste to it.


You know how they say healthy dishes are the most colorful dishes? Pretty.

Here I've added some fat-free half & half and letting the chicken finish...

The recipe calls for 4 servings, but I made it into 3. I doubled the amount of corn and okra for added veggie goodness, and I put about 3/4 cup white rice into each dish. I had this as a very tasty lunch today, and will have it twice again this week. Overall, I give it 3 1/2 stars.


Tonight, I decided to make the "Easy Pepper Steak." Considering I've never really liked the taste of peppers, I really have come to appreciate them as a light way to add a lot of flavor. They do get better when they're cooked. Here's the starting point -- well, after a good 20 minutes of veggie prep:




The sauce is a combo of low-fat, low-sodium beef broth, low sodium soy sauce, and corn starch.

And here are my 4 servings - one for dinner, 3 for this week, also served over about 1 cup each of white rice. I know, I should use brown and I do most of the time, but I really wanted white rice today. This is really tasty - I give it 4 stars. Yay to cooking with veggies!